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From time to time I see posts for medical device coding jobs on craigslist and the like. Quite commonly they require one to have experience with C#.Net. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Heart disease runs in my family. If I get a pacemaker, is it going to be running Microsoft Windows?

This is yet another symptom of a very common disease: enter computers, and all of the sudden medical professionals simply ignore patient privacy and security. May be it's for the lack of understanding on the part of individual doctors, but then where are their governing bodies looking? They are selling us out. They must be corrupt three times over.

Last time I went to a doctor for a regular checkup, I almost asked her: are my responses private? [Yes, I assume] Then why the bloody hell are you typing them into a Windoze? You are sharing them with Microsoft and its affiliates as you are typing them in front of me, so where do they go when I am not looking? I didn't confront her, though, opting instead to be very discrete about my medical condition.

I agree completely. We get closer to the iceberg if we consider the invasion and the ongoing occupation of Iraq, which is a war of aggression and a war crime, and carries with it a tremendous toll on the civilian population.

If UN is going to police the world, they should start with interstate conflicts, and the rogue state number one, instead of meddling with the internal affairs of a state so week that it will collapse on it own without humanitarian help.

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

No, he demonstrated that a hero will be called a traitor by the actual traitors he exposed.

traitor (noun) One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country.

When did he betray USA? When he exposed massive surveillance, which is almost certainly unconstitutional? When he exposed the fact that NSA is operating without any practical oversight? Or the fact that most (if not all) of the Congress has no right to know whether they are being spied on? Or the fact that the highest NSA officials lied, and continue to lie under oath? He broke a low, granted. That makes him a criminal, not automatically a traitor. And in this instance, it also makes him a hero, since the law he broke is oppressive and should have never been on the books.

We need to be careful not to praise the acts only because the results were good.

In this case, however, the laws he broke are oppressive: something you forgot to mention. The reason he cannot return is because USA does not have sufficient whistle-blowing protections. Should a citizen be able to report an illegal activity and a gross abuse of power, regardless of the classification of relevant documents? In a democratic society, it should be the citizen's duty, and an activity protected by the law. So we need to be careful to give Snowden praise he deserves for bringing our attention both to the illegal activities, and to the sad state of our legal system.

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

But unlike UDHR, this is merely lip service. They give it with one hand, and with the other hand they take it away completely. If a state gives out exclusive distribution rights, then third parties have the right to censor any kind of sharing (3a). Anything but pure flattery can be construed as disrespecting someone's reputation (3a). Anything at all can and have been construed as threatening national security: in particular, any kind of political speech (3b). Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Since enforcing copyright against people who share information online non-commercially is clearly a violation of a human right according to UDHR, to which UK is a signatory, how about throwing copyright enforcers in jail instead? How long is the public going to put up with this oppression?

Please, stop spreading the myth of "standard codec" and "quality". Anything will be a standard if it is crammed down the people's throats. As for quality, please. All Web video is shit. Talking about the differences in "quality" between mp4, theora, and webm is like talking about the shades of dung. 5 minute videos of cats playing piano and girls masturbating produce exactly the same effect, no matter the codec. On a smartphone screen too. Give me a break. Feeding the patent mafia, who are basically censoring Wikipedia for millions of users, is a much bigger issue than any subjective difference in video quality. Think it through. Thanks to patents, copyrights, and non-free software, many spy-phone users can't see the videos at all, and you keep talking about a marginal improvement in "quality"?

If this device is fully free and open, then it can obviously spoof every one of its IDs, and provide a strong defense against location tracking (although not perfect, if one wants to jump from tower to tower while keeping the IP connection intact). The problem, as you can see, is not just with the device, but with the cellular providers, who forbid anonymous users. So if this phone can use the cellular network in USA, then it automatically will have to be non-free, and the whole thing is a scam. In particular, their claims of privacy and security would be straight-up lies. If it does not, however, use the towers (wifi only), then it has a chance of being true to its claimed purpose.